Come on Tykes! Fly flag of independence W
THIRTY-FOUR million residents of the United States have Irish heritage so it’s no surprise they celebrate St Patrick’s Day more enthusiastically than anywhere else, including Ireland.
After all, it was an Irishman called St Brendan who, according to legend, first discovered America in the sixth century after setting sail from Kerry and turning right instead of left.
St Patrick himself wasn’t Irish although he had been taken to Ireland as a slave 100 years before. He escaped, became a cleric and went back as a missionary.
Many Irish emigrated over the centuries, hoping to find a better life elsewhere.
Thousands went to America and the first St Patrick’s Day Parade was held in New York in 1762.
The roots are strong in the US: They turn the river through Chicago green and serve draft green Budweiser, which I found less than palatable when I happened to be over there on St Paddy’s Day a few years ago.
I was in the Hy-IuHee-Hee bar in Gigg Harbour in Washington State, with brother-in-law Ian Lennon, who emigrated to the West Coast from Skelmanthorpe years ago. The bar’s local Indian name means Good Times and Lots of Laughter.
We had already had plenty of laughs driving past rows ITH superb timing, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon demanded a second independence referendum as Theresa May announced the imminent launch of Brexit.
The Prime Minister will trigger Article 50 to start the official twoyear negotiations for Britain to leave the European Union before the end of the month. But will Scotland still be part of the Union when we finally shake off the dust of Europe and close the Channel Tunnel?
It’s all speculation but the UK cause was not helped by the Twitter spat between the two leaders that followed, which is bound to fire Scottish ire and have chaps with Braveheart faces waving the Saltire on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh and chanting: “They’ll never take our freedom!”
The arguments for and against independence, and whether a referendum can or should be held before Brexit, will rumble on.
But the possibility of Scoxit (Scotland leaving Britain) has kickstarted debates about the feasibility of Waxit (Wales leaving) and Nixit (Northern Ireland departing to create a united Ireland) so they can all join the EU.
Wales only has a population of three million but Malta is a member of restaurants around the bay: Every single one, from Italian to Mexican, Peruvian to Vietnamese, was flying the Irish flag.
We tried the green Bud in the bar and it was awful. Still, it was another laugh.
Then a chap in a kilt came in, at the start of his round of every bar and eaterie, to play the bag pipes and bring a touch of old Ireland to a part of the West Coast that is more German and Scandanavian than Irish.
Up and down he marched – playing Scotland the Brave.
He made it a Paddy’s night to remember. ■■Huddersfield’s St Patrick’s Day Parade takes place on Sunday. and they only have 423,000, so size, apparently, doesn’t matter. Northern Ireland has 1.8 million. Scotland has 5.295 million.
By heck, if we continue down this road, England itself could start splitting into fiefdoms with robber barons – and we have plenty of them – carving out their own little empires. They’ll have serfs on zero hours contracts, while they claim expenses to maintain the floating duck houses on their moats and decaying bell towers on their stately homes. This could be the moment for all Yorkshiremen and women, renowned for their sense of fair play, hard work and tenacity, to demand their own independence referendum. After all, we have a population bigger than Scotland’s with 5.3 million people.
The Yorkshire Independence Party has been campaigning for years with a manifesto that includes returning to old weights and measures and thruppeny bits, free Yorkshire puddings for old age pensioners, removal of VAT from flat caps, tariffs on southern beer and Lancashire hotpot, and making coal carrying and whippet racing Olympic sports.
Come on you Tykes. Don the woad and start waving the White Rose flag of independence.